Congressional representation

Now that’s what I call voter suppression

NO SOONER had Barack Obama been re-elected than John Boehner sought to pre-empt the president’s argument that his agenda had been vindicated. “The American people want solutions,” the speaker of the House said, “and tonight, they’ve responded by renewing our House Republican majority. With this vote, the American people have also made clear that there is no mandate for raising tax rates.”

Did not! The Democrats won 50.6% of the votes for president, to 47.8% for the Republicans; 53.6% of the votes for the Senate, to 42.9% for the Republicans; and…49% of the votes for the House, to 48.2% for the Republicans (some ballots are still being counted). That’s not a vote for divided government. It’s a clean sweep.

The House of Representatives is supposed to be the arm of government that most closely reflects the popular will. Its members are allocated by population, serve brief two-year terms and represent small districts, giving every citizen a local representative who will advocate directly for their interests. In the (probably apocryphal) formulation of George Washington, the House is supposed to channel the people’s passions like hot tea, which is subsequently served up to the contemplative Senate for cooling.

For most of modern political history, the chamber has fulfilled this duty admirably. When one party won a big lead in the popular vote—as the Democrats did often from 1954-92—it exaggerated their advantage, helping the voters’ preferred party enact its agenda. Following the Watergate scandal, Democrats won 59% of House votes in 1974 and 57% in 1976; they were rewarded with 67% of the chamber in both years. In contrast, when the vote has been closely split, the House has generally reflected a divided electorate: from 1998 to 2004, the Republicans’ share of representatives (51%, 51%, 53% and 53%) closely matched their percentage of the vote (51%, 50%, 52% and 51%).

However, in the first vote following the decennial redistricting process in 2010—when Republicans took advantage of their strong performances in state legislative elections to set a new standard for gerrymandering—the House has completely abandoned the popular will. Not only is the wrong party in control, but it reigns with a sizable majority: despite receiving just 49.6% of the two-party vote, the Republicans have 54% of the seats. The GOP will have a bigger share of the House in the next Congress than it did following Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America”-fuelled Republican Revolution of 1994, when it won 53.5% of the two-party vote and 53% of the seats.

It is not the first time that a party has won a majority of seats in the House despite receiving fewer votes than its rival. Mr Gingrich’s team won re-election and a 26-seat majority in 1996, on 47.8% of the vote to 48.1% for the Democrats. In 1942 Sam Rayburn managed to attain a 13-seat majority for the Democrats in the mid-terms, even though his party won 46% of the vote to the Republicans’ 51% (small wonder that Rayburn holds the record as the longest-serving speaker). But rarely does it produce such a skewed result as we've seen in the House this year.

It’s also not fair to attribute the current democratic (with both a lower- and upper-case “D”) deficit entirely to gerrymandering. As Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s fact-checker, notes, the fact that Democrats tend to live in cities causes them to be concentrated in fewer Congressional districts. This means they would probably be under-represented even in the absence of a partisan effort to weaken them. He cites a report showing that the GOP secured 11 seats during the 2010 redistricting—meaning that the Democrats would still be a minority in the House even if the pre-2010 map were still in effect.

But it is a problem for the country that the House has ceased to reflect the immediate popular will. The current crop of Congressional Republicans have proved themselves willing to go to unprecedented lengths—principally putting the Treasury at risk of default—in order to implement their policy agenda, despite holding only one of the three elected arms of the federal government. With the fiscal cliff looming, perhaps the biggest changes in decades to the role of government in the economy will be negotiated by a party that was rejected at the polls.

For at least the next two years, America will remain stuck with a gravely unrepresentative House of Representatives. Since Mr Obama will need the Republicans’ assent to prevent the economy from tipping back into recession, he probably cannot afford to antagonise them by publicly questioning the legitimacy of their majority in the lower chamber. The simplest way to restore the House’s democratic credibility would be a constitutional amendment adopting proportional representation. But that is both unrealistic and undesirable, since it would sever the link between individual members of Congress and their constituents that gives the House its vitality.

Barring such a drastic measure, it is up to the states to change their districting procedures one by one. Fixing the system would require solving an enormous collective-action problem. If states controlled by Democrats decide to appoint independent committees to draw boundaries but those run by Republicans do not, the GOP’s structural advantage in the House would only grow. (This is the same obstacle that supporters of a national popular vote for the presidency are trying to surmount.)

The only viable method for Democrats to reinstate the House’s democratic integrity is to win a healthy majority of state governments in 2020, threaten to gerrymander to their own advantage, and then use that leverage to extract a deal from state Republican parties for a non-partisan districting process. The Democrats have shown they have the support of a majority of voters across the country. But all politics is local, and they will have to do as well in the states as they do nationwide in order to get their just deserts in Congress.

California recently adopted non partisan, non gerrymandered state districts while under Democratic control. The result? Even greater Democratic representation and a new supermajority in the legislature.

In other words, Democrats in California wanted to play fair. And fairness happened to favor Democrats. Go figure.

There's a lesson here for the Democrats. And they have most of a decade to absorb it.

When there is a census, put major, major efforts into state legislature elections. Even if it costs you some seats in Congress that time around. Even if you have to go to extreme lengths to turn out your voters in an off-year election. Because otherwise, you will get hobbled like you were this time.

We can argue about who, among the Democrats, is to blame for this fiasco. But nobody can doubt that they screwed up big time in 2010. And are paying for it now, and for the rest of the decade.

It's always possible to pick some level between the individual voter and the totality of government that is "gravely unrepresentative."

You can be sure that someone's particular neighbourhood is being "gravely underrepresented" by virtue of the fact it leans red or blue yet the county leans the other way. And that county may in turn be "gravelly underrepresented" because the district leans the other way. And so on. How about about if we go a step ABOVE the House of Reps? Democrats control 67% of the three decision making bodies, the White House, the Senate, and the House, yet this far exceeds their share of the national vote. So why isn't that an outrage? Because of an arbitrary focus on another level that's why! Suppose you had your way and a couple dozen House seats were shifted over to the Dems. Then they'd control 100% of the national government with just 52% or so of the national vote. How would that not be undemocratic?

One can argue that my observations about neighbourhoods and counties are irrelevant because the House system is built upon districts. But there's no particular district size, departure from which is inherently undemocratic. The districts could be bigger or smaller. If one says "but this is the current state of the institution" you've just undermined your argument that what ought to be the case is other than that which is the case. Which is basically what was admitted here with the call to keep "the link between individual members of Congress and their constituents". The price of that link is "misrepresentation." If the appropriate response is to have the misrepresentation but combine that with a concerted delegitimatization effort directed at those results that were not wholly favourable, as I've noted the other side can generally act selectively enough to do the exact same thing, and if not this election then likely in a future election.

I might add one more thing here: incumbency advantages are measurable yet are being ignored here. Why? Perhaps because a solution to that, term limits, is largely a GOP idea?

Jeez. If you're really a stickler for democratic integrity the stench from the Senate and the Electoral College (and recently Florida) should have driven you away a couple centuries ago. America may utilize some democratic instruments, but it has never been a democracy.

Will it ever be one? At the rate we're going, we may have to wait a couple more centuries before we can reasonably pose the question. By then, China could even be more democratic than America.

The situation is not dissimilar to political institutions in late Roman Republic. The tribal assemblies (comitia tributa) had some similar characteristics as the House of Representatives. Of the 35 tribes in the assemblies (not dissimilar to House electoral districts), 4 were urban tribes and 31 were pastoral tribes. At some point, this may have been a fair breakdown of the distribution of citizens between urban Rome and the countryside. During the Punic Wars, and later the civil wars of the late republic, many citizens had been dispossessed of their agricultural land and moved to Rome, where they became part of the urban tribes. Since decisions of the tribal assembly were by a majority of tribal votes, requiring 18 tribes' voting in favour to pass a motion, the urban tribes' voting power was insignificant, even though those tribes had most of the population.

Of course, the Roman Republic had many other institutional shortcomings than the democractic deficit in he assemblies. But the undemocractic structure of the tribal assemblies was one means by which conservative aristocrats blocked serious reform of the republican institutions. In the end, reform came through Caesar using the legions to destroy the power of the nominally democratic republican institutions, and with it, the republic itself.

I couldn't tell if I were reading a press release of the Democratic party or what's supposed to pass as an "unbiased" article of "facts". Geez, talk about a slant. First as Mark Twain says there are "lies, damn, lies, then there are statistics" - I can twist all your data to make the case for either side. And further to say that the gridlock in Washington is solely due to the "current crop of Congressional Republicans" is laughable. First, it takes two to tango. And it's called compromise. Second item, which shows a dramatic lack of understanding of the US political system by the author, the entire US governance model is built precisely to ensure this type of gridlock occurs (and where compromises are ugly and have to be ground out). It's why we have multiple branches, it's why we have filibusters, it's why we have our system of the electoral college and first past he post voting - and on, and on. It's naive to say that our current political system is "unprecedented", more so to lay it solely on one party or the other.

The way to bridge the divide is to let the extreme right wing confederate states secede. Can Texas please leave by the nearest exit and go quietly. Can it take Louisiana and Alabama with it. The new country can be called North Mexico or North Honduras.

Man, I didn't know that all my no-debt-after-undergrad Chinese, Hispanic, black, and Indian friends working towards careers in business, medicine, law, engineering, physics, biology, computer science, and big pharma were so addicted to government welfare, sucking the life out of poor taxpayers who EARN THEIR MONEY, BY GOLLY!

But thanks for letting me know that our tax-paying opinions don't matter! I genuinely support your well-reasoned point of view.

How about saying that with every year there will be more equitable pay for WORKING people, whose spending is the REAL job creator, and the small number of market-manipulating takers who call themselves job creators (yeah, right, IN CHINA!) will be helping to balance the budget by paying fairer taxes? Economic collapse will come only if the UNSCRUPULOUS subset of the wealthy continue to grow in power until average Americans cannot afford to buy enough stuff to pay collectively for enough of them to have jobs. We just dodged a bullet on that on Nov. 6, but the one-percenters are surely reloading. In religious terminology, their goal seems to be a Biblical economy: back to the days of King Herod, High Priest Caiaphas, and Pontius Pilate living in luxury while the rest of the people starved and had no vote at all.

"But it is a problem for the country that the House has ceased to reflect the immediate popular will. The current crop of Congressional Republicans have proved themselves willing to go to unprecedented lengths—principally putting the Treasury at risk of default—in order to implement their policy agenda, despite holding only one of the three elected arms of the federal government. With the fiscal cliff looming, perhaps the biggest changes in decades to the role of government in the economy will be negotiated by a party that was rejected at the polls."

1. The population over age 65 by majority didn't vote for Obama. They voted for Romney.
2. The married people across America did not by majority vote for Obama. They voted for Romney.
3. Those defined as religious, church going people did did not vote by majority for Obama. They voted for Romney.
4. The whites who dominate race by population in America did not by majority vote for Obama. They voted overwhelmingly for Romney 59 percent.
5. The white, WORKING CLASS, BLUE COLLAR Americans did not by majority vote for Obama. They voted for Romney.
6. The JOB CREATORS of America did not vote by majority for Obama. They voted for Romney.
7. The BUSINESS COMMUNITY did not vote for Obama by majority. They voted for Romney.
8. The entrepreneurs did not vote for Obama by majority. They voted for Romney.
9. The people who PAY income taxes and hold jobs did not vote by majority for Obama. They voted for Romney.
10 The successful innovators and creators that bring you i-phones and i-pads did not vote for Obama. They voted for Romney.
11. The land area of America did not vote for Obama. 70 percent of the counties in America voted by majority for Romney.
Who the hell voted for Obama? The people ADDICTED to every form of GOVERNMENT welfare, from food stamps to 99 weeks of unemployment that was once 26. Government employees, public employees and especially public employee unions of every type; all people trying to suck the life out of taxpayers through higher tax levies on EVERYTHING to fund higher wages/benefits for themselves. Of course the minorities who seek riches through their vote rather than their work under wealth distribution and some Obama induced fantasy notion of guaranteed economic EQUALITY as if this were socialist America not capitalist America. The almost half of America (47 percent) who pay NO INCOME TAXES almost all vote for Obama. Why? He assures them they WILL NEVER pay any taxes.
The young voted for Obama. Millions of them are in debt up to their eye balls and jobless holding degrees in Ancient Egyptian Antiquities while we need people to program robots. The youth are INOCULCATED with "DONKEY DUMB" by every teacher and professor for 16 straight years. Public schools and colleges are nothing more than training grounds for Democratic dogma, instilling the democrats view of POLITICS into children 24/7. Tell me about the last teachers union from K to grad school you saw supporting ANY Republican candidates for office? There are 3.2 million public school teachers, almost all vote union donkey because they want higher taxes ON YOU to benefit THEM all while macro education fails us ALL miserably. Review the 2012 SAT scores, where you can get a REAL EDUCATION.

"I don't mean to sound like I support gerrymandering, and I'm not averse to revenue increases, but honesty prods me to counterpoint: Barack Obama won his second term with even lower a percentage of the popular vote than George W. Bush did."

True because 3rd party candidates won nothing in 2004 and 1.4 percentage points in 2012. However, Obama's popular vote margin over Romney was about double W's (double W's, I made a funny) margin over Kerry.

Passing Mitt Romney's health care plan is Democrat extremism? Well that's an argument for another day.

Well, on the one hand, it always struck me as a particular perversion of popular will to have officeholders elect their constituents. On the other hand, all this talk of a mandate seems overdone. Barack Obama was given the responsibility to lead the executive branch and propose laws consistent with his promises and John Boehner has the job of making the president compromise before enacting the laws. They both have their jobs and I'm pretty sure we'll mostly all be happier with both jobs done than we've been with neither.

Electoral college does the same vocation in sustaining Democrats when it comes to the Presidential elections.

New York, California puts Presidents job in the pockets of Democrats with simple straightforwardness. Presidential electoral college blends the right mix, that what it was suppose to do. As if the founding fathers were geniuses, they have created a fine balance between geography, poverty, affluence and demography of America.

Counties are sparsely populated, but they predominantly vote Republicans. All major towns with extreme pockets of poverty go to Democrats. If you have close analysis of the counties within those heavily populated urban Democratic dominated States, geography, educated and wealthy pockets still favours Republicans. If House would have gone Democratic I think we could have seen far more resentment.

Everyone gets his share of pain in a Federal Democracy.

Please stop over analysing, the knife cuts both ways, you cannot ignore Geography and taxable base by putting everything in the hands of the will of densely populated disenfranchised urban centres. The 'hinterland' of America was the source of the last Civil commotion, it is very good that those who 'pay 72%' of the Incomes tax should get some representation though the recent 'gerrymandering of the house.

(Despite receiving just 49.6% of the two-party vote, the Republicans have 54% of the seats. The GOP will have a bigger share of the House in the next Congress than it did following Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America”-fuelled Republican Revolution of 1994, when it won 53.5% of the two-party vote and 53% of the seats.49% of the votes for the House, to 48.2% for the Republicans)

Democrats need to do something about this imbalance, they cannot act like 'feudal' to get their votes and send some opium of welfare their way, that is not good enough. It has to be retraining of these disenfranchised majority the first priority of the Democrats. The most under privileged voted Democrats all educated counties predominantly were Republicans. The job is to make these inner cities educated and first class citizens amongst this pathetic divide that is increasing at gods speed. Hot soup and feeding on the election day is just not good enough, don't give them fish to eat train them to catch fish.

Make your own judgment as to who voted for who, the consent of the predominant pay master is equal important as the head count :

Seriously do they make desk calendars for conservative quips about the fore fathers? Every conservative post on this blot post have been canned fluff. They are trying to figure out why most of the house vote went Dem yet they still -30 disadvantage in seats it is novel question that curious people have interest in. This outfit known as the economist has a specific crowd it targets and it isn't some Liberal appendage. If you believe that in the face of substantial counter evidence you would probably be better served by Fox News or the Blaze. As marketing professional I just don't think you are in the target audience here so use your freedom and make a different choice.

What a bizarre article. No news, no analysis - just complaining about how the Democrats don't have enough power, with a few numbers thrown in to give it some credibility. I expect better from The Economist.